BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Tuesday, October 11, 2016 -- The Free
Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project today call upon the free
software community to submit nominations for the 19th annual Free
Software Awards. The Free Software Awards include the Award for the
Advancement of Free Software and the Award for Projects of Social
Benefit. The awards are presented each year at the LibrePlanet free
software conference.

Award for the Advancement of Free Software

This award is presented annually by FSF president Richard
Stallman to an individual who has made a great contribution to
the progress and development of free software, through activities
that accord with the spirit of free software.

Individuals who describe their projects as "open" instead
of "free" are eligible nonetheless, provided the software is in
fact free/libre.

Award for Projects of Social Benefit

Nominations are also sought for the 2016 Award for Projects of
Social Benefit.

This award is presented to the project or team responsible for
applying free software, or the ideas of the free software
movement, in a project that intentionally and significantly
benefits society in other aspects of life.

The award recognizes projects or teams that encourage people to
cooperate in freedom to accomplish tasks of great social benefit,
and those that apply free software ideas and lessons outside the
free software community. A long-term commitment to one's
project (or the potential for a long-term commitment) is crucial
to this end.

This award stresses the use of free software in the service of
humanity. The FSF has deliberately chosen this broad criterion so
that many different areas of activity can be considered. However,
one area that is not included is that of free software
itself. Projects with a primary goal of promoting or advancing
free software are not eligible for this award (the FSF honors
individuals working on those projects with its annual Award for
the Advancement of Free Software).

The award committee will consider any project or team that uses
free software or its philosophy to address a goal important to
society. To qualify, a project must use free software, produce
free documentation, or use the idea of free software as defined
in the Free Software Definition. Projects that promote or
depend on the use of non-free software are not
eligible. Commercial projects are not excluded, but commercial
success is not the metric for judging projects.

Last year, the Library Freedom Project received the award.
A partnership among librarians, technologists, attorneys, and
privacy advocates which aims to make real the promise of
intellectual freedom in libraries, the Library Freedom Project
teaches librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and
responsibilities, and offers digital tools to stop surveillance,
all with the aim of creating a privacy-centric paradigm shift in
libraries and the local communities they serve. Notably, the
project helps libraries launch Tor exit nodes.

Other previous winners have included Reglue, the GNOME Outreach
Program for Women (now Outreachy), OpenMRS, GNU Health, Tor, the
Internet Archive, Creative Commons, Groklaw, the Sahana project,
and Wikipedia.

Eligibility

In the case of both awards, previous winners are not eligible for
nomination, but renomination of other previous nominees is
encouraged. Only individuals are eligible for nomination for the
Advancement of Free Software Award (not projects), and only
projects can be nominated for the Social Benefit Award (not
individuals). For a list of previous winners, please visit
https://www.fsf.org/awards.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development
and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU
operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free
documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread
awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the
use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and
gnu.org, are an important source of information about
GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA,
USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information
for journalists and publishers, is at
https://www.fsf.org/press.